Divergence
by Rumour of an Alchemist
Summary: Alternate Universe. Albus Dumbledore found the Chamber of Secrets and killed the basilisk in 1984. Ginny Weasley arrives at Hogwarts in the possession of a certain diary in 1992... One-shot. Rated 'T'.


Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following one-shot is a brief sashay into an alternate universe where Albus Dumbledore (eventually) discovered the Chamber of Secrets and exterminated the basilisk in 1984. This is to have ramifications in 1992...

As a reminder, although one canon character is almost exclusively referred to in the books as 'Ginny' Weasley, her actual first name is Ginevra.

This story is rated 'T'.

* * *

_The Daily Prophet, 6__th__ August, 1984_

…It has been brought to the attention of _The Daily Prophet_ that Albus Dumbledore – the vanquisher of Gellert Grindelwald, and holder of many honours and several important positions – has recently defeated a rather large and dangerous basilisk. Where Albus Dumbledore found it, he refused to disclose, but he posed with it and with the head of the DMLE for our photographers. The head of the DMLE is to take charge of the corpse of the fabulous monster (its eyes gouged out, during Albus Dumbledore's battle with it) and expects to be able to make good use of the hide. (The deadly venom will of course be safely disposed of)…

* * *

Hogwarts, Saturday, 7th November, 1992

Ginny Weasley stared around her in awe at the room that Tom had told her how to find.

He had seemed a bit put-out last weekend, for some reason that he'd never disclosed to her, but had recovered his good humour by the middle of this past week, and he had told her about a room 'of hidden things' where she should check to find out if he'd ever cached anything there. He'd even taught her a simple spell, to locate any item which he'd placed here and 'tagged' with his personal signature.

A quarter of an hour later, a somewhat dusty Ginny was lifting down a glittering diadem, from the head of a bust of an old warlock…

* * *

Hogwarts, Sunday, 8th November, 1992

Tom's initial reaction to 'piloting' Ginevra down to the Chamber of Secrets on the Friday night of two weeks previous, to double-check on the basilisk before unleashing it to celebrate the end of October, had been one of disbelief – and of utter outrage.

There had been signs of a titanic battle having taken place in the Chamber, with smashed and melted stonework, the roof having collapsed in places, and with a severe absence of Slytherin's monster. Well, an absence unless one counted the odd blackened scale here or there or long-dried splatter on the walls of what might have been blood.

Several furtive trips to the library had followed on the nights immediately after that, again without Ginevra's active awareness of what she was doing. Tom _could_ have asked Ginevra for help in his investigations, but he had had no idea what facts would come to light, or what potentially awkward questions she might have had about things; thus best, to Tom's mind, to simply head off such possibilities and to avoid involving her except in so much as her body was required to access books and old newspapers.

Anyway, he had soon discovered what must have happened: Albus bloody Dumbledore had found the Chamber of Secrets and killed the basilisk. Of course the man hadn't publicised exactly _where_ he'd had his epic battle – he wouldn't want it getting about that there'd been a basilisk under Hogwarts, after all, or that it had taken him some four decades to track it down and finally dispatch it – but it was clear to Tom that that was what must have happened and the end result was that Tom was down one basilisk.

Clutching for straws, for _anything_ that might help him ultimately discredit or destroy the headmaster, Tom had taken a calculated risk and he'd told Ginevra about the Room of Hidden things – the one place in Hogwarts he could think of where he might have at some point stashed an item of supreme value or use. To get her into the room, Tom of course needed Ginevra to want to get in as much as he himself did, so there had been no way around his involving her. On the positive side, she'd actually been delighted to have Tom confiding in _her_ such a secret, and having her learn and employ the spell to locate items he'd placed magic on had saved a good deal of awkwardness with Tom trying to use not just her body but her wand.

And in the Room of Hidden Things, they'd hit the jackpot: Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem.

This discovery had been valuable to Tom: not just for the diadem itself, but because apparently Tom's later self had forged a connection to it – although in the doing so he had been considerably less sophisticated about the process than he had in creating Tom. Still, said connection had been sufficient for Tom to have been able to instantly establish his own 'link' with the diadem, and now, as Ginevra lay tucked up in her bed in the Gryffindor dormitories, with the diadem nestled on her brow, it allowed Tom to whisper to her in her sleep and infiltrate into her dreams.

He could _probably_ just suck the life out of Ginny, to fuel a ritual to constitute some sort of body for himself, if he took the time to work out how to do it, but right now he preferred the possibilities that the diadem presented him to try a very different route: shaping and moulding little Ginny, one night at a time, until she became a very powerful and very loyal servant.

Tom's later self had had a notorious and much feared servant known as 'Bellatrix Lestrange'; well by the time that Ginevra had finished with Hogwarts, with Tom's subtle direction and the diadem's help, Ginevra would make Bellatrix Lestrange seem like a near-squib. Ginevra would be the greatest witch since Rowena Ravenclaw herself – perhaps even since Morgana.

And she would be Tom's; all Tom's.

* * *

Author Notes:

The headmaster handing the basilisk corpse over to the head of the DMLE (whomever that was in 1984) is something I wrote as happening so that there'd be _some_ publicity about the event and something on the public record about what had happened. If Tom _had_ simply asked Ginny, it's possible that she might have heard/known about it (although she was only three years old at the time that the actual basilisk-slaying occurred). I consider it a narrative-necessity for where the basilisk had been found to have been obscured; if Lucius Malfoy had had any reason to connect the basilisk in the papers with Hogwarts or the Chamber of Secrets, he might not have bothered to pass the diary off onto Ginny in 1992, since there wouldn't be any monster in the Chamber for her to unleash to dispose of those mudbloods and to embarrass certain personages...

In this universe, Tom took a trip down to the Chamber of Secrets on the evening of Friday 30th October, to check that the basilisk was there, okay, and awake, before his intended canon 'The Chamber of Secrets has been opened' excursion of the evening of Saturday 31st October. Obviously he discovered instead that the basilisk was completely gone...

I've assumed that Tom sees Albus Dumbledore as his most pressing concern. Harry Potter's on the list too, but somewhere well below Tom's former headmaster, who was the only one that apparently even 'Lord Voldemort' apparently feared. In the long-run, Tom will likely encourage Ginevra to think of Harry as a possession for her to ultimately _own_ (and of course to destroy in a temper-tantrum if Harry in any way disappoints).

Tom will make sure that Ginny/Ginevra takes steps to hide or disguise the diadem. He'd prefer she never take it off, except for in situations where its presence might otherwise be unduly revealed and an identification made, but at the moment it's a bit big/loose on her eleven year old girl head for walking around in (and as a major magical relic I assume doesn't get on well with conventional size-adjustment magic).

This story in part came about as a result of a tale by 'Cillit Bang Bang' on this site, which got me thinking about what Tom might do if he was at Hogwarts, in possession of Ginny, but minus the basilisk as a means to discredit/bring-down Albus Dumbledore? Finding the diadem and figuring out some way to try to use it seems to me one possible way to go...

This story is a one-shot.


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